Yet There Is Method In It
by theDubliner
Summary: Sequel to "Though This Be Madness". Sherlock is home, but the Game is far from finished. How far will Moriarty go to destroy Sherlock? And how far will John go to save him?
1. Moonlit Reassurances

**Warning: This is the sequel to "Though This be Madness"; this story will make almost zero sense without having first read its prequel.**

_Author's Note: Let me begin with my sincerest apologies. I know that I am not the most timely of authors, but to wait almost a year before posting this sequel is nearly unforgiveable. In my defense I can only say that the past year has not been an easy one. Since I last posted I have been spending a good deal of time in hospitals and therapy with two of my siblings, both of whom I almost lost. My mind, therefore, has not been on this story or with Sherlock at all, really, since I last posted. Things have become a little more stable, though I cannot claim to be back in my old state of mind just yet. That being said, I have been trying to get back into writing as my own form of therapy. This chapter is short, and probably not what I would have posted a year ago, but I am trying to get back in the swing of things. Please be patient with me and I hope soon I will be back posting on a regular basis. I've already begun plans for chapter two of this sequel and I'm once again getting excited at the prospect of writing and being in touch with all of you wonderful people. _

_Whew, now that that's out of the way, let me remind you where we left off, since it's been such a dreadfully long time. Sherlock has been returned home by Mycroft and has been sentenced to two weeks recovery by his faithful doctor. It has been revealed that Moriarty has been behind the plot all along (he will make his appearance in the next chapter, which will offer some more concrete answers concerning the how's and the why's of _Though This Be Madness_). _

_Please enjoy and get back to me with reviews – I love hearing from you, always; your feedback really does help move the story along._

_Oh – and I've missed you so much!_

* * *

It was maybe three-thirty in the morning when Dr. John Watson was awakened from sleep by the haunting sounds of a violin downstairs. While it was perhaps the third time this week, and that music only served as a sign that Sherlock had again been unable to sleep, John could not help but admit that the sound soothed him. It meant that Sherlock was home, and safe, and … himself.

Despite his initial misgivings, the good doctor was slowing coming around to letting himself believe Sherlock's adamant protestations that his mental state was completely restored. The detective was playing again, he was performing experiments again (if only to fend off the paralyzing boredom of his forced house-arrest), and he was, of course, back to being a thoroughly annoying git.

John sighed and swung around so that his feet brushed the floor. He knew going downstairs would only cause another fight, but he couldn't help checking up on Sherlock whenever he got the chance. As far as reassurances went, disembodied violin sonatas were a poor substitute for seeing the man himself. All things considered, John could not blame himself for the sneaking suspicion that all of this was an illusion – the peace, quiet, and safety – which would soon be shattered by Moriarty's reappearance…

Since he knew sneaking up on Sherlock was an impossibility, he took his friend's failure to acknowledge his entrance as intentional. Or, more childishly put, Sherlock was giving him the cold shoulder. Just to make sure, John cleared his throat as he stood in the doorway. "Couldn't sleep?" he asked amicably.

Sherlock played a little louder.

John groaned and said to his friend's back, "You can't stay mad at me forever, you know."

A pointed silence.

"Mycroft _does_ have people out searching for him, Sherlock."

The detective's shoulders strained and he let the violin fall from his shoulder to dangle at his side.

John knew _that_ would get a response. Sherlock had expressly declared, in one of his more juvenile moments, that his brother's name never again be spoken within the confines of 221B. _Ever_.

The doctor rolled his shoulders wearily. "C'mon Sherlock, you can go after him yourself soon enough. But you need some time to recover-"

An audible huff of irritation.

"You _do_," John insisted. "You promised me two weeks, remember? You seemed perfectly content with that arrangement at the time."

Sherlock spun on his heel with a haughty eye roll. "Oh please, John, I was so overwhelmed with ridiculous happiness at finding us both alive, I would have said anything at all to make you happy in return. It is unfair to hold me to a promise I made while so obviously emotionally compromised."

John was taken aback. He thought his friend's words might have been … _sweet_. But you could never really be certain with Sherlock.

"Well I _am _holding you to it," John planted his feet defiantly. "No matter how deliriously happy you were to see me when you made it," he added with a teasing grin.

Sherlock was not amused. Running long fingers through dark curls, he groaned in frustration. "There's something I'm _missing_, John," he nearly whined. "You cannot keep me contained when there is something _vital_ I've missed. Something … important."

John watched his friend and tried not to let his guilt show on his face. He knew precisely what Sherlock was missing. It was, in fact, hidden in the waistband of a pair of unused briefs in his top drawer upstairs. The flash drive on which the taller man had recorded a message that last night with Moriarty – a night Sherlock had, apparently, completely forgotten. And he had been completely content to let it remain that way, allowing both doctor and detective a brief respite from the world of madness and pain they had both lived over the last year. John himself hadn't even opened the drive, preferring to put it out of sight and out of mind until such time as Sherlock had completed his two weeks mandatory recovery and they could, together, rejoin the Game.

"John, please," Sherlock was there, suddenly, close to his face, pleading for the one thing John could not give him. Not yet.

"No," John said resolutely, and kept his eyes firmly lock with his friend's for as long as he dared.

"Just tell me _what_ it is!" Sherlock erupted. "Tell me what I'm _missing_. I know you know. You and Mycr- my _brother_ have been in constant contact since I've been home. What _happened_? Why did Moriarty choose to release me?"

John shrugged sadly. "Who knows? He _is_ mad, isn't he? Maybe he just wasn't ready to end … it." He wasn't sure if he'd originally meant to say "the Game" or "you", but either alternative option seemed dreadfully appalling and said a little shiver of terror down his spine.

Sherlock stared John down for approximately half a moment more before turning away in disgust and picking back up his instrument.

John sighed. They had this fight at least once a day, and it always ended the same. The doctor was absolutely, in no way, going to give up this brief period of rest before they plunged back into the cruel Game that was Moriarty's design. Of course, John could not have predicted the message waiting on his mobile upstairs, the one that would shatter all thoughts of peace and safety from his mind. The one that read:

_I am tired of waiting, John. I want to play. The Game begins tomorrow at noon. -JM_

* * *

_A/N: Please, I know I owe you all SO many answers. And I swear on Steven Moffat that they will all be in the next chapter. Not to give anything too big away, but that chapter will be told mostly in flashback so that we will relive the last night Sherlock spent with Moriarty and what happened to make him release Sherlock. I hope this is enough to tide you over and reassure you that I am, at the very least, alive, and still have good intentions with this story. _


	2. A Worthy Adversary

_Author's Note: God is it amazing to be back. I had forgotten how therapeutic it was to write about other people's problems and ignore my own… _

_Anyhow, this chapter does _not_ contain the flashback I mentioned in my last AN as this chapter simply became too long. So the recounting of Sherlock's night in captivity will come _next _chapter. But this does, hopefully, tie up a lot of the left over angst from the last chapter of _Madness_ (while creating a whole new batch of angst, yay!). I spent the first bit recalling what Sherlock remembers at this point in the story – as requested by the wonderful **Twice-ler**, who has been a loyal reader since the beginning. It was probably for the best – I tend to go off on writing tangents and forget that plot is, in fact, necessary to the progression of stories. So thank you, dear Twice-ler for keeping me on track._

_Anyway, I won't keep you too long, but I must say that I am incredibly proud of this chapter and I am getting back into my old self as concerns my writing and style. Please enjoy and please let me know if you're still out there! I miss hearing from you, dear friends…_

* * *

To the doctor's credit, he does not panic. At least not immediately. What he does do is carefully extract the flash drive from it's hiding place and set it on his nightstand. Then he stares at it, long and hard and unblinkingly. It's such a tiny thing, really, no bigger than his little finger. It's plastic glints innocently in the light given by John's bedside lamp. And yet its significance cannot be overstated. It is the last puzzle piece.

Sherlock has proven to John over the last few days that he remembers everything but that last night. On his third night back at Baker Street, in a sudden fit of prideful rage, the detective had aggressively listed for John the episodes of his mania. "You'd like me to prove it, would you?" he'd growled before launching into his account of the last year – complete with scathing commentary on his brother's stupidity and even a few remarks in praise of John's superior instincts.

From the Fall, to his stay in the hospital – Mycroft, his attempts to _protect_ his brother, and the cocktail of hallucinogens and mood suppressants. The strange house with the strange cat where Mycroft left him to rot. The night John came to call and nearly ruined everything. Sherlock's first escape and the perilous decision on Mycroft's part to have him committed. Sherlock's _second_ escape and the night he attacked Molly Hooper. The maddening ups and downs once he'd returned to Baker Street and the inability to understand _why_ he was not recovering despite the cessation of his … _medication_. His _third_ escape – this time from his own home – and the nights of anonymity in a pub, stalked carefully and deliberately by James Moriarty. And then the sudden crippling _ability_ to understand. To understand everything.

Oh yes, everything up until that last precious moment appeared to be fully restored to Sherlock's extraordinary mind. The rest – the end of the story, the beginning of the sequel – was contained on the insignificant bit of computer memory at John's bedside. A message, recorded by Sherlock himself, some time during those last hours, held hostage by Moriarty himself. The Game had been at an end – Moriarty had emerged the champion. And yet, _and yet_, the criminal had relinquished his victory along with his hostage, vanishing back into the night, forfeiting the Game he had so relished. The answer to the _why_ lay hidden in the contents of the flash drive.

John sighed. Then he called Mycroft.

If the elder Holmes had been asleep, his voice did not betray him.

"_John_."

"We don't have two weeks. He's back."

A pause. "_I cannot pretend that I am surprised_."

"Tomorrow at noon, he said. The Game's back on."

"_It was always merely a matter of time_."

"Then you want me to show him the drive."

"_We must be prepared, Dr. Watson. _He_ must be prepared_."

"Yes."

"_We will not find James Moriarty until James Moriarty wishes to be found_."

"Yes."

"_I will wait to heard from you, John. You will inform me if you require assistance of any kind_."

With a click the connection dies, and John listens to the sound of his own breathing. He realizes, slowly, that Mycroft Holmes – in his own haughty, imperious fashion – has just relinquished command. He has given John the reins, put him in full control of Sherlock's wellbeing. The next move is his, and his alone.

* * *

John sits in his chair; Sherlock, in his, nimbly picking out the keys on John's laptop that will pull up the contents of his flash drive. The eerie whites and muted colors of the screen cast strange shadows on the detective's face. His eyes look exhausted under the superficial glare, his mouth set in a determined frown.

"_I have been demoted_," Sherlock says then, but it is not the Sherlock who sits across from John. It is Sherlock from a week ago, the night of his abduction – the ghost of his voice coming through the speakers of John's computer. "_Apparently I have not provided a sufficient challenge_." John hears the onscreen Sherlock heave a sigh, while his own Sherlock takes a shuddering breath. "_Mycroft. As I am sure you have already deduced, our James Moriarty has been behind these games since the beginning – since the Fall. You must fire Anthea – it was she who offered you the unlikely idea of drugging me, committing me, in the first place, was it not?_"

John's eyebrows raise at this, though Sherlock is not paying him any mind. John hadn't known that – he had thought the idea had come to Mycroft all on its own. It made sense, though. Use a third party – a trusted third party – to implant that seed of inspiration. John could see it in his mind – Anthea knocking on Mycroft's office door late one evening, the British diplomat overwrought with stress and concern for his only brother. "You need him to stay out of sight," she might have said, "until you can solve the Moriarty problem on your own. You need to keep him safe, hidden somewhere." And Mycroft would have nodded, exhausted. "But you'll never get him to hide, not Sherlock, not as he is." And Mycroft would have sighed, "No," his tired head cradled in his hands. "If you were to … tone him down a bit, make him doubt himself, perhaps it would be easier to keep him out of danger. You need him docile, dependent, quiet…" And Mycroft would look up with a hint of something like hope in his eyes, not bothering to question Anthea's suggestion in his desperation. The words were promising – the plan hopeful – hand delivered by one of the few people Mycroft Holmes trusted.

But on screen Sherlock is continuing, his tone oddly soft. "_That is irrelevant. Moriarty's plot was successful, whomever is to blame for its inception. He drove me to madness, for a time. The drugs which were delivered first by your hand, then by his own, were enormously effective. He failed to shame me when I jumped from St. Bart's, but that was the extent of his failure. It was a far better revenge in the end – to see me insane rather than simply discredited, for it was a shameful reality even I accepted, in the end_."

John watches Sherlock's grey eyes darken as he watches his on-screen reflection. "_Something went wrong, however,_" past Sherlock explains calmly. "_In the end, my performance was unsatisfactory. Killing me – defeating me – is no longer Moriarty's objective. Do not misunderstand me – it is still quite likely that he _will_ kill me. He has promised as much. But Moriarty has been thwarted in his design. He revealed to me the extent of his plan earlier this evening, as well as his frustration that it did not reach its perfect conclusion. He had successfully manipulated Anthea, you, and countless other of my friends to play the Game, all at your insistence. Lestrade, Molly, Mrs. Hudson – everyone played their part. Everyone but John_."

John audibly gasps at this, but Sherlock is completely absorbed in his second self, revealing the well-laid plans of a madman.

"_John, as you know, failed to play along. Time and again he proved a difficulty to you and, tangentially, to Moriarty. In Moriarty's mind, he is the one who has emerged most powerful. John has, unwittingly, become Moriarty's newest and most dangerous opponent_."

John continues his gaping, teetering somewhere between relief that Sherlock has been dismissed and an absolute crippling terror that he is now the subject of James Moriarty's wrath.

"_I have been offered a final test. After Moriarty explained the trajectory of his logic, he gave me an ultimatum. A last mind game. He will release me to warn you and John that the Game is not over and allow us to play another round – only this time, with John as his primary target. Or… I can stay and end the Game with both our deaths. He has given me the night to make my decision_."

A pause in which past-Sherlock seems to collect himself. "_I am tired, Mycroft, and I will not play by his rules. I cannot know for certain which path Moriarty _wishes_ me to take, but I imagine he does not truly wish the Game to end. By refusing my chance at escape I am both refusing to play his Game and calling his bluff. I can say with a fair degree of conviction that he will not end the Game when he finds me here in the morning. By that, I mean he will not end his own life and forfeit the remaining play. I do not know if he will make good on his promise to kill _me_ – I can only hope I am still a worthy enough adversary, even if I am no longer the most perfect opponent. That place has been taken by John, as I have said, which leads me to my final request._

_"If I should meet my end tomorrow, you must keep him safe, Mycroft. Get him out of the country, change his name – pull any strings you might have, do whatever must be done. Moriarty has backed me into a corner – he has defeated me. I can only hope John truly is the more perfect opponent – that he will succeed where I have failed. You owe me this, Mycroft_."

Sherlock's face is cast in shadow as the message ends and the file closes. There is only a moment of wasted silence before the detective plucks the flash drive from the computer and drops it in the pocket of his dressing gown.

John is sitting stunned, completely unable to process the contents of the tiny drive. There are too many possible meanings to it all, too many inferences and implications – the Game has become too complex, too intimate.

John's never been very good at chess, and he loathes the idea that he has just been forced into a lethal round of that very game. He must think as his opponent thinks, and eight steps ahead, but his head is spinning and his eyes sting and he can't even remember the rules.

He looks to Sherlock and his friend is staring off into nothingness, eyes burning into the darkness.

John catches his breath, begins to ask: "What happened next? What happened when Moriarty found you?" But Sherlock looks directly at him and his eyes are still burning.

"Out," he says, "get out."

"Sherlock-"

"I need to go to my mind palace. I need to remember."

"Can I help?"

"No. I am useless unless I can remember everything, every detail. I must remember exactly what he said, how he looked, what he meant. I cannot play the Game with this gaping hole in my memory – my knowledge of our enemy is incomplete and I am handicapped. I need to _think_."

And John nods, knowing that leaving Sherlock to his thoughts means abandoning his friend to the recollection of physical and mental torment, yet unable to do otherwise.

* * *

_A/N: What do we think? Have I successfully written myself out of the corner I created at the end of _Madness_? Can we handle the terrible things that Moriarty will do to our dear John Watson? Suggestions are welcome, as well as comments of any nature._


End file.
